


Family Matters

by SrebrnaFH



Series: Srebrna's Sherlock Oneshots [18]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Eating Disorders, Established Relationship, Established Sherlock Holmes/John Watson, Friendship, Hospitals
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-26
Updated: 2019-03-26
Packaged: 2019-12-18 11:23:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,710
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18248855
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SrebrnaFH/pseuds/SrebrnaFH
Summary: In the whirl of preparation for a celebration, misery is ignored. Symptoms stay unnoticed.





	Family Matters

**Author's Note:**

> Out of discussion of what we could see if Season 5 ever happened, came this little plot bunny. It's not what I was considering at the beginning, but if the problem was at some point addressed in the show, it would make for a lot of character development for some of our favourites.
> 
> Thanks to wildishmazz for helping me with this one :)

There were dates in the calendar that Sherlock would never forget. The Day In The Lab. John’s Birthday. The Return (not his, John’s). The Day Mary Disappeared. His own birthday (although that celebration was a fresh addition… as fresh as The Return). The Proposal.

Maybe two or three others.

All of them had their colour in his mental calendar - green.

There were also a few dates marked in black.

The Fall. His Return. The Wedding.

And that one day in late February. That day when he gave in to his fiance’s suggestions and decided to visit his brother, simply because they expected to hear from him on that day in some wedding-related matter and yet he had not appeared or called.

#

Mycroft’s flat was an antithesis of theirs (well, not that much anymore, since John introduced some helpful cleaning routines), but just like 221B, it was full of books, documents and various knicknacks - just organised in much cleaner way. The door responded to the code Mycroft had given John several months earlier, when they started the whole wedding planning mess - it had been a joke, covering the real reason under a poor attempt at humour - but they were in and the flat was… empty.

Very empty.

He strolled down the long hallway, peeking into the rooms - library, living room, dining room - who needs all these rooms when they live  _alone_? - nothing. Except suddenly John made a distressed sound when he reached the stairs and in a flash he was on the landing, kneeling next to the crumpled form of Theodore Mycroft Reginald Holmes, checking the pulse on the white, outstretched wrist.

“He’s breathing, thank God.”

Something choked in John’s voice told Sherlock the real level of his lover’s distress. John was honestly worried about Mycroft, which meant there was some actual danger, which meant…

His heart squeezed in fear.

Of course there was danger. His only brother was lying on the little landing, having most probably tumbled from the steps above him - only three, but still - and looking quite… alone.

“He hit his head. Go downstairs, fetch me a wet towel and a dry one. And call the ambulance.”  
  
He felt faint. For a moment. But no, he had to keep upright. He needed to stay focused.

“Can't you…?”

“If he fell down these stairs, he might have a spine injury. I can’t risk moving him, and he  _is_  breathing on his own. I just want to get rid of that blood and see what’s below. Towels, now. And the ambulance. Sherlock!”

#

Finally, Mycroft ended up in a hospital. They ended up in the hallway in front of his room, waiting for someone to tell them the details. Unlike with Sherlock, John could not bully his way inside, claiming to be the personal physician. He was stuck outside, with Sherlock, like a good ‘family member’, looking more worried with every passing minute.

“Mr Holmes?” a woman’s voice woke them up from their tired stupor. “Your brother is awake and asking for you and…” she checked on her clipboard, “A Doctor Watson. There isn’t anyone like that in the hospital, I’m afraid.”

“Ah,” John smiled wanly at her. “That would be me. I was the one to find him.”

“Ah… family physician?” the small sneer on her face seemed out of place with her otherwise kind demeanour. “You should pay better attention to how your clients are treating their bodies. Unless it was you who administered that…  _diet_ …!”

“I wonder how you came to that conclusion,” Sherlock interrupted her. “Is John’s name anywhere in Mycroft’s documentation? Is he mentioned as primary care GP? No. Is there anything else…?”

The way her mouth opened and closed mutely was most entertaining, despite the fact that John shook his head, exasperated.

“I am not Mycroft’s doctor. Just future brother-in-law. Now, what happened?”

“I'm not sure you are entitled to be hear this…”

“Sherlock is, so I will hear it all from him anyway. And I’d rather get the important details directly from you, so that we can make sure this does not happen again.”

“Fine,” she scowled. “He is not concussed and has suffered no major injury, but he is very severely bruised - if he tumbled down three steps, as you suggested to the paramedics, it looks like he had some fantastic luck there. No head injury, apart from that gash - and it does look awful, just like every head wound, but it should heal without a trace. The blood results are back and, going by the levels and other vitals, he most probably fainted due to a combination of hypoglycemia, excessive exercise and dehydration.”

“In short, he didn’t eat or drink enough and he worked out too much,” John translated with a sigh.

“Not… exactly. What you say is correct… if it was just today. If he forgot his breakfast, left his water bottle in the kitchen, went for a little run or some weight-lifting and then swooned from the sudden lack of sugars. Happens to the best of us. But he… Mr Holmes has all the signs of having been at it for some time already. At least several months. Very substantial body mass loss, skin says it all. And humans are not supposed to lose that much weight in a short time during the winter months. Body has its requirements and if they are not met, it rebels and… this happens,” she nodded towards the room.

“The wedding,” John concluded, sitting down heavily.

“Oh, is he getting married?”

"No, we are," John squeezed his hand. "We asked him - well, I asked him to officiate. He probably felt the pressure to... to do _this_. And then we hadn't really seen him all that much in these last three weeks, what with the cases, and his work - he was in Japan until Wednesday, spent two weeks there... It is possible flying might have affected his state?"

"Potentially," she said. "And being jetlagged probably affected his sleeping patterns, too, which contributed to the body finally shutting down."

"Yeah," Sherlock murmured. "Mycroft would probably rather work and push the sleep until later, to get back to our time zone. He isn't one to lie about and _sleep_ more in order to realign."

"So he does this on regular basis?" she sounded _worried_. Someone, an outsider, a stranger, was actually, properly _worried_ about his pompous ass of a brother.

"He works with international diplomacy. Something about transport," John explained in his bland 'no idea what I'm talking about' way. "Travels a lot due to work."

"Ah," she cringed. "I will order a panel of tests for exotic diseases then. Just in case. You can visit him, but don't stay for more than half an hour. And inform the nurse in case he wakes up."

#

Mycroft was pale. Every tiniest freckle on his long nose stood out starkly, his thinning hair was swept back, ruthlessly uncovering the receding hairline and he looked... Ill. He had fallen asleep soon after acknowledging their presence, but they weren't ready to leave just then, so John fetched himself a cup of so-called tea from the machine and they sat there, silent.

It might have been the first time they found themselves like this - Sherlock sitting by Mycroft's bedside and not the other way round. He tried to recall if there was... No. Never. The few times Mycroft had been that seriously ill were when Sherlock was either too young and so was left at home or was away at the university and only learnt about if after the fact.

The truth was, he felt ill-equipped for this.

"It's my fault," he said finally.

John nodded slowly, staring at the heartbeat monitor.

"At least partially, yes," he confirmed softly. "I... I didn't notice. I should have noticed. I..."

"I am his brother," Sherlock interrupted harshly. "And, supposedly, so observant. I never..."

They were pausing, again and again, unable to get to the end of the sentence without their eyes straying to the pale hand with an IV hooked to it.

"Why would he _hurt_ himself? Why would he do... do _that_...?"

"Sherlock," John seemed oddly irritated. "I think you may be mis-assigning the blame here. You are not at fault because you didn't _notice_. You are the one who pushed him on this path."

"What? Impossible. No. Why...? How..." Sherlock frowned at John's impatient sigh, but then suddenly his brain caught up with what his blogger had already worked out.

_Is this another pound you've gained?_

_Definitely a new waistcoat._

_Do you really think this cut flatters you?_

_Have a biscuit, brother. One more won't hurt, will it?_

He hid his face in his hands and groaned.

"Don't tell me you never noticed _that,_ " John's voice dropped to a harsh whisper. "Sherlock, you practically _bullied_ him into this. God knows what else he might have been doing! He could have started throwing up just to speed up the weigh loss...!"

His head snapped up to look at his fiance, honestly hoping that John may be joking - morbidly, even for the two of them - but the doctor was quite serious. Quite, quite serious.

"But... _Why?_ It's not like he ever reacted to what I said...! I just..."

"Sherlock," John's hand on his silenced him rather effectively. John had that effect on him - making him stop and, well, _think_. "Why would you say it then, if he didn't react?"

"Well, it did shut him up," he pointed out weakly. "Nothing else ever did."

"M-hm. And if nothing else ever shut him up, but this did, what can we infer from that fact?"

"That he is a thick-skinned, heartless rhinoceros," Sherlock snorted, but a squeeze to his fingers brought him back on track.

"Again. If no other joke, remark or dig ever worked and this one did, what is the logical explanation?"

He screwed his eyes shut, trying to delete the pale, sickly profile of his only brother from the backdrop of his brain. Unsuccessfully.

"That it was actually something that got to him," he admitted reluctantly. "But he never did anything! It's not like he had any actual fat to lose, so he couldn't really _do_ anything about it...!"

"And so, here we are," John said, rather mercilessly.

Quite justly, however.

Here they were.

**Author's Note:**

> I am taking a writing course and one of the tasks is to ask my readers to describe my writing style in 3 adjectives. I'd be grateful if you could provide this kind of feedback :)  
> (if you provided it already somewhere else - THANK YOU! :))
> 
>  
> 
> [You can find me on tumblr.](https://srebrnafh.tumblr.com/)  
> [Or visit my blog.](https://fanfik.wordpress.com/)


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